EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

I am Lieutenant Colonel Michael D. Merritt, Deputy Brigade Commander, 142nd Fires Brigade, Arkansas Army National Guard.  I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and submit testimony relative to my experiences as they relate to USERRA. 

I received my commission in 1984 and spent four (4) years on active duty before beginning a civilian career as a Human Resource Manager and joining the Army National Guard.  I have seen the impact of military service in the Reserve Component (RC) from the employer’s perspective as well as the Servicemember's.  As a National Guard officer recently returned from deployment overseas as a battalion commander, I have a heightened awareness of the impact military service has on the employer/employee relationship.

My personal experiences and most of those of my Soldiers have ended positively.  The greatest contributing factor to those outcomes has been the desire of employers to take care of their reserve component employees, not from a sense of obligation to comply with USERRA requirements.  Most concerns have come from the perceived missed opportunities, or concern their commitment to serve will hurt their chances to advance in the future.

Doing the right thing has been the objective of all my past employers and USERRA only came into play as a reference.  As a Human Resource professional I know many civilian managers to include Human Resource personnel are not as familiar with USERRA as they should be.  You might credit that to the lack of challenges made by returning service members under USERRA.  I believe a better understanding of USERRA, periodic review of company policy for compliance and a communication plan could help prevent misunderstandings and alleviate a lot of worries from employers and employees alike.

Chairwoman Herseth Sandlin, distinguished members of the Committee, I am Lieutenant Colonel Michael D. Merritt, Deputy Brigade Commander, 142nd Fires Brigade, Arkansas Army National Guard.  I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and submit testimony relative to my experience as a member of the National Guard and as an employee of a Fortune 500 corporation.  Specifically, issues related to my legal rights under USERRA.  My testimony today reflects my personal views and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Army, the Department of Defense, or the Administration.

Let me begin by giving you a brief background of my military and civilian career paths.  I received my commission as a Regular Army officer in 1984 and spent the next four (4) years on active duty before beginning a civilian career and joining the Army National Guard.  Over the course of 19 years I have been exposed to the impacts of military service in the Reserve component from both the employer’s perspective as well as the Servicemembers'.  For seventeen of those nineteen years I have been in the Human Resource profession, with fifteen of those years as a Human Resource Manager.   I have held positions in locations that had as few as one hundred employees to as many as eleven hundred.  Some of those companies had a significant number of Reserve component employees and others had very few.  As a National Guard officer with 19 years of service and having recently returning from deployment in support of OIF as an artillery battalion commander, I have seen the impact of military service on the employer to employee relationship. 

My personal experiences have always ended positively, as have most of the experiences of my Soldiers that I have been made aware of.  Having made that statement I must admit the greatest contributing factor to those positive outcomes has come more from the desire of employers to take care of their service member employees, than out of in depth knowledge of or desire to comply with USERRA requirements.  The concerns that I have heard from my Soldiers have come more from perceived lost opportunities during deployment or concern their commitment to the National Guard will somehow hurt their ability to advance in the future.   It is my responsibility to review the questionnaires completed by Soldiers that have decided not to reenlist upon reaching the end of term of service (ETS) and by far the two most common responses are “family commitments” and/or “employment conflicts”.

My only personal experience that has led to reference to USERRA requirements came at the end or my recent deployment to Kuwait.   My total deployment time was 18 months during which time my position as Human Resource Manager was backfilled with another employee.  As my tour of duty     was getting close to ending I was told that another Human Resource Manager position was available in another city and that I should take this position as a lateral move.  This would have required relocating my family shortly after returning from my deployment and I had no desire to put my family through that at such a difficult time.  The positive turn came when I reminded my employer about USERRA requirements and they quickly recognized both the legal situation and my personal desire not to move and promised my original position back. 

After returning to the United States, I made the decision to resign my position and become self employed.  My decision was not made because of this one small issue, but rather my desire to continue seeking higher levels of responsibility within the National Guard and to be able to do that under my own terms without the institutional pressure that I admit was mostly self imposed.  In many ways, my previous employers have exceeded legal requirements when dealing with my military service obligations.  Most common was making up any pay or benefit differential that might exist between my military pay and benefits and those of my employer.

In conclusion it has been my experience that doing the right thing has been the objective of all my employers and USERRA only came into play as a reference for making those right decisions.   As a Human Resource professional I will say that people in that field are not as familiar with USERRA as they should be.  You might be able to credit that to the lack of challenges made by returning service members under USERRA.  Trusting that your employer will meet the intent of the law and that no negative repercussions whether subtle or blatant will jeopardize your career does cause anxiety for the citizen Soldier.  A better understanding of USERRA, a review of company policy for compliance and a communication plan could help prevent misunderstandings and alleviate a lot of worries.

I would like to express my appreciation for being given this opportunity to submit testimony to the Committee.